Last weekend I took my son prairie dog shooting. He was shooting my Tikka varmint .223 On the second day of shooting we had just moved to a new dog town, the gun was cool, about 75 deg. day and he took about 3 shots then he said Outch, what was that? I ejected the bolt and the claw extracter was broken. The case had blown the primer back in pieces. Hot gasses hit his cheek right below his right eye. It didn't do any damage and didn't really bother him. I felt bad because I left the safty glasses at home. From now on we both will be wearing glasses, he was damm lucky. I have been reloading for 25 years and never had this happen with any of my reloads before. I just started loading for .223 this year. I never had one before, always shot 22-250 for years.
I had 200 rounds of brass from BlackHills(blue box) and 100 rounds of winchester brass(shot once) all mixed up in a pail. I loaded all the brass randomly with 21 grains of 4198 IMR Win. primer, 55 g. V-max. I noticed the BH brass about every 5 or 10 shots the primmer was pushed out a little or fell out when the case was ejected. When I seated the primmers with a RCBS hand primmer I noticed alot of the primmers seated in the case without much resistance, almost loose. The Win brass looks normal after being shot. I am going to pull the bullets and throw the rest of the BH brass away, I don't trust it. I shoud have been more suspect of the brass when the primmers seated so easily.
I didn't think mixing the brass up would matter with a mild load. I wasn't after 1/4" accuracy.
Anyone have any ideas on what went wrong?
I had 200 rounds of brass from BlackHills(blue box) and 100 rounds of winchester brass(shot once) all mixed up in a pail. I loaded all the brass randomly with 21 grains of 4198 IMR Win. primer, 55 g. V-max. I noticed the BH brass about every 5 or 10 shots the primmer was pushed out a little or fell out when the case was ejected. When I seated the primmers with a RCBS hand primmer I noticed alot of the primmers seated in the case without much resistance, almost loose. The Win brass looks normal after being shot. I am going to pull the bullets and throw the rest of the BH brass away, I don't trust it. I shoud have been more suspect of the brass when the primmers seated so easily.
I didn't think mixing the brass up would matter with a mild load. I wasn't after 1/4" accuracy.
Anyone have any ideas on what went wrong?